


live again, live anew

by EmptyHeartedLover



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Canon Compliant, Gen, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-02
Updated: 2018-11-02
Packaged: 2019-08-14 14:10:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16494098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmptyHeartedLover/pseuds/EmptyHeartedLover
Summary: What is a man to do when he survives a self-imposed suicide mission? For a man like Fox, he supposes the only answer he has is to just exist, and try and come up with a life plan on the fly.





	live again, live anew

**Author's Note:**

> This was a late birthday fic written for my friend - I didn't know it was her birthday because she didn't tell me right away >=/
> 
> Note: opinions of characters do not reflect the opinions of the author.
> 
> I love Gray Fox.

When one survives a technical suicide attempt, what are they to do? If you are to ask Fox, his answer is simple: _exist._

Snake doesn’t seem to be okay after what has happened, a broken apart thing at the sight of the injuries that Fox has sustained. Panic briefly flashes on his normally impassive face, a panic that he cannot seem to get rid of until Naomi finally takes care of Fox through Snake, and what a twist of fate this has to be that he ends up being taken care of by the one person he has been hoping to never face again.

The truth sits on the tip of his tongue but it doesn’t tumble over out into the abyss of reality, and Fox is stuck staring at Snake’s fingers as he ends the codec transmission. “I won’t tell her.” Snake tells him with an air of finality to it, and Fox looks at him warily. “She’ll be better off. I know she doesn’t like me, not really.” He looks at Fox, then to his sides, over to Liquid’s unconscious body, and then up at the ceiling. He tips backwards, falls against the wall and slips all the way down to join Fox on the floor. “What is going on, Fox?”

“A lot of things, Snake.” Fox rasps out and pain blooms with his attempts to move, though he is good at masking it so that he can shuffle next to the other man. “You can’t even give me the one thing I want, could you, Snake?” he asks accusatorily, but the bitterness doesn’t last long.

There is a brief flash of discomfort on the man’s face before it melts away, leaving him looking stoic and, surprisingly, constipated. He crosses his legs, hands resting on his knees and his fingers drum on where they perch. He grimaces, looking uncomfortable, and he can’t seem to look at Fox. “I need to find Otacon and Meryl.” He says after a long, heavy silence and Fox lets out a soft ‘tsk’ at the deflection. Snake pointedly ignores his reaction. “You have not met either of them, have you, Fox?”

“I never planned to.” He says, and the plan is clear in the few words he has said. A sudden exhaustion takes over Snake, making him look far older than he has any right to look, and the man shakes his head. He rises up on trembling legs, reaching out to Fox who takes his help and stands up taller, steadier, than Snake. “But I guess I don’t have a choice as to who I meet now, do I?”

Snake shrugs and stays silent. He just stands there, looking out of place, and he almost feels sorry for Snake. This entire mission has been a rollercoaster of mistakes and miracles that settles itself as a heavy boulder on Snake’s back, and it is clear that the weight is starting to crush him now. But Fox doesn’t say anything, doesn’t really want to, and so he stands there and waits, and waits, and waits for Snake to do something.

But they both stand in absolute silence, no rasp or gruff to interrupt the quiet, and it is… peaceful, this way, almost. The silence is new.

It is when they are about to leave this mess, Snake making it a point to side-step Liquid, that he finally speaks up, piercing through the silence. “You told me to keep living,” he says, “you told me to never give up. You told me all this. You told me to keep living, because you didn’t trust me enough to keep you alive.”

“That isn’t true, Snake.”

“I couldn’t pull the trigger, Fox. Not until the very last moment. But you’re alive now, and you can’t kill yourself, I know you won’t, and I won’t kill you. Whether you like it or not, Fox, I’m giving you another chance. Don’t lose it.”

* * *

It takes only a few steps out the door before the entire place begins collapsing on itself, codec calls forwarding themselves into Snake’s while the world around them shakes. Fox thinks he wouldn’t mind falling apart like this, but he can’t – not this way, at least, this isn’t the death he wants – and Snake won’t let him. He grabs his elbow, deliberately repositioning himself so he is grabbing his uninjured hand, and drags him away; his other hand is positioned at his ear, clearly taking a transmission.

He wishes, almost, that Snake will just rip his arm off, just like that. His body is incredibly fragile, that is until it fixes itself [which he has always hated, because the pain fades quick], and it will be easy to just tug and tear.

“We’re gonna find Otacon,” Snake says, “then we’re gonna find Meryl, and we’re all gonna get outta here before we die in this deathtrap.”

They are both quick and Fox is still far stronger than Snake so clearing out debris is easier than breathing, even if the strain gives to him a sharp pain that is gotten rid of whenever the other man stabs him with some sort of needle. His body’s metabolism is quick, which often leads to two needles having to be used at once just to keep the pain minimum. It is a curse, really.

The first person they find is a young woman: her short hair juts out, her body wrapped up in military gear, and he quickly recognizes her as the woman who has managed to escape during Snake and Liquid’s confrontation. She looks less frail now, more ready to take on the world, though her gaze falters when she takes Fox in. “You brought a cyborg ninja with you?” Meryl, he presumes, asks. “Snake… you are a man of so many surprises, you know that, right? I can’t believe that of… wait. You’re-“

“I recognise you too.” Fox says. “Let’s not waste time.” Frustration briefly makes it onto her face, but it is quick to fade and, instead, a pensive expression takes over. She reaches down to grab a gun, her hands a bit shaky, fingers trembling as she offers it over to Snake, and Fox turns away from her. “A rookie, huh?”

Whatever either Snake or Meryl are going to say is immediately silenced by another rumbling; the blaring of the alarms is getting louder and louder, reminding them that they can’t stay and chat. Meryl barks at them to move, then shoves at Snake to lead the way, and Fox is almost outpacing them without a second thought. “You did this mission with a rookie, Snake?”

“She wasn’t supposed to be on it.” Snake snaps out.

“I wanted to be.” Meryl corrects. “I had my own job to do here, separate from his, and I came to do it. I thought – I thought this was what I had to be.”

“She’s come farther than when she started out.” Snake says blankly.

Snake’s expression softens and Fox blinks. His eye hurts. “We need to find… Otacon.” Something about the name fills him with a sense of… not dread, but maybe it leaves him feeling weirded out.

It isn’t a dreadful or despairing name, but something about it… something about it feels so very odd. Snake seems to sober up from whatever thoughts are bouncing in his head, and Meryl silences the arguments that want to spill out.

The Otacon fellow is a young man in a lab coat, with shaggy long hair and an extremely nervous disposition to him. He seems to be waiting for them since his codec call, body shifting about, and he is staring off at where the exit is though he is quick to face them when his name is barked out by Snake. His voice is lilac soft and his speech is jittery when he says, “S-Snake? Is that you? Oh thank goodness, it is. I thought – I don’t know what I thought about, actually.”

“Yeah, it’s me. What are you doing uncloaked?” Fox squints, staring at Snake as he approaches Otacon, and it takes the other man some time to respond.

When he does, however, it isn’t to Snake: “you’re the cyborg ninja!” he yells out, pointing at Fox, and it hits him now why the voice feels so familiar. “You – you’re a good guy!?” he yells out again, sounding almost hysterical, and Fox looks over at him blankly, an eyebrow raised. “How do you look so young!”

“Cute.” Fox says blankly, and Otacon seems to stutter at that. “Aren’t you Dr. Emmerich?”

“Yes!” he says, enthusiastic; how odd it is that he has gone from frightened to joyful so quickly. The childish glee on his face will have been hard to ignore if not for the debris falling around them, and the way the place is rumbling like a starved gut. “But you can also call me Otacon – it stands for otaku convention.”

What is an otaku convention?

“Otacon,” Snake interrupts tersely, “we can’t stay here for long. You and Meryl said there’s an exit here.”

Meryl speaks up, “yes – just ahead of us. That place is the most structurally stable place, so we should have an easier time getting away. It’ll take some time before that part collapses.”

“And – and I can break the security code that’s jamming some of the doors right now. They’re kind of, um, malfunctioning, and I can help with that!”

Meryl decides to stay with Otacon when they get to the exit, making sure to keep him calm and from freaking out, and Snake stays behind with Fox, [“We’ll protect you.” Snake says. Meryl rolls her eyes as she says, “we don’t need it.”] which means that nothing good can come out of this. “How have you been doing? Do you need more injections?” Snake says after he has led them both away so that whatever he says isn’t within Meryl’s and Otacon’s earshot. He rifles through his vest, trying to check for supplies, and he can hear him mumble, “I have… only two left if you need any.”

His gaze softens at Snake’s movements, and he shakes his head. “I’m fine, Snake. I haven’t had to do anything physically taxing.” Besides the debris moving, of course, but they have already gone over that. “I am not made of glass.”

“Not always, but you are right now.” Snake says tactlessly, like he always does. “Naomi said that you’re easy to hurt right now.” She did, didn’t she? Of course she did. She doesn’t want him hurt. His artificial heart tightens in his chest. “And I don’t wanna see…” he inhales sharply through his nose. “I don’t know, Fox. I don’t know. Every other time, I could just pull the trigger and I’d do the mission. I could… understand some sacrifices. I knew that the death I gave them would be better. But I couldn’t do it that time.”

The area around them is crumbling; dust and debris falls all over the hallway they came from, causing Meryl to yell and Otacon to yell back that _I’m trying okay!_ and he wonders if they will die just because the engineer is too scared now. He did piss himself back then, didn’t he? Where did he get the change of pants?

Snake is waiting on an answer from him, still.

“I am not going to tell you that you’re justified.” Fox says. “When I was just Frank, you still went up against me and paralyzed me, left me a cripple.” He says bluntly and Snake looks away. “There was nothing personal to it, right? Just soldiers in a battlefield. Even if I am like this because of _you,_ ” he says, his words lacking malice, and he stares at Otacon’s back while he talks, “it doesn’t mean anything. We’re all sons of war, and that should follow you out of the battlefield.” He looks back once he has finished speaking, taking Snake’s ever impassive expression in.

Snake grunts. “Life will never be simple for us. Too many men… too many men, women, children ruined by war. Everywhere we go is a battlefield.”

“I know, Snake.” Fox says patiently; there is something warring behind in Snake’s eyes, the glint in them telling him that even his mind has become a minefield too dangerous to tread lightly on. “The battlefield will never leave you, even if it’ll temporarily leave the world. You and I… maybe we weren’t born to be fighters, but we were programmed that way.” A pause, then,  “are you scared of moving forward?” Snake shakes his head and Fox smiles ruefully, wishing he still had his mask on to hide his expression. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you be scared before.”

Another pause; he can hear Otacon talking loudly about something, the area around them begins to rumble, and the foundation is starting to fall apart. Quietly, Snake looks over Fox’s shoulder and he follows his gaze to watch Meryl and Otacon, watch them work together and discuss something or other, the former quieter and the latter seemingly panicking.

“I felt scared for them.” Snake says. “I saw a little girl stumbling into the field and a little boy who doesn’t get it. Do you think science can be used for evil?”

He doesn’t even pause to reply, “yes. But anything can be used for evil. Some are even necessary evils. Wouldn’t you say that war can be seen as a necessary evil? Government? The rise of fascism is needed so that we can get socialism, or perhaps communism is needed to make capitalism.”

“I want a world without war, Fox. I don’t wanna see more inexperienced glory hounds meeting a terrible fate. So many people not knowing what the hell they’re getting into, blindly rushing into missions they’re not ready for…” he focuses on Meryl as he says that, “so many people so uncertain of the future, of what to do. Of what’s right or wrong, when there should be no question for it. Science should _never_ be for evil.”

Otacon pumps his fist up in the air, yelling victoriously, and Meryl smiles at him, turns around, and then motions at Fox and Snake to follow. When he looks back at Snake, he looks like he wants to say something more and he keeps closing and opening his mouth before he grunts, shrugs, and starts following after the two in front of them.

“We can talk about this again later, Snake.” Fox promises and Meryl looks at them questioningly. Meanwhile, Otacon looks at him with a twinkle behind his eyes, all while murmuring that he really is living out an anime plot, and Fox decides not to question what that means.

* * *

Watching Liquid die like that is pathetic. He grasps his chest, eyes bulging out, his breath quickening and his words are strained as he calls out to Snake. Mirth fills him when he crawls forward, arm reaching out and fingers spreading out, his voice a gurgle of “Fox…”

“… Die.” And Snake is smug, arrogant, triumphant. Watches Liquid crumple before him and perhaps Fox should feel bad, yet the only thing he can feel at that moment is not a small amount of amusement at the sight of his attempted-murderer dying so pathetically like that. It is in a fit of spite that he lifts his corpse by the back of his neck and flings it off the cliff, much to the yells of surprise of Otacon and Meryl.

After that moment of spite is over, where they can’t see Liquid’s body rolling down the cliff side, he can’t help but feel… nothing. There is no satisfaction to seeing his would-be killer’s body be abused like that, nothing triumphant blooms in his chest, and there is no smug pride in having seen a man beaten after humiliating himself so thoroughly. All he can do is stare off at the snowy distance, the cold barely registering to him – and even then it is only his face that is cold – and his body feels stiff for an entirely different reason.

A warm grip settles on his shoulder and he looks over to see Snake’s curious gaze. “Fox?” he says, “something wrong?”

“No,” he says, “I’m just wondering on what to do now, Snake. What else is there left for me after this? What about you? Or them?” Across from them, Meryl is getting on a jet ski, and Snake yells at them that he will be riding down with Otacon and that Fox will be joining her. He doesn’t really protest to it much.

“You can keep living.” Snake suggests. “And I know you won’t off yourself. Not when Naomi knows you’re still alive.”

“And I have to tell her, someday.”

“I won’t let you. I don’t want her to be miserable. I don’t want you to take the blame for it anymore.”

Fox sighs. “Snake…”

“You can still live life to the fullest. You don’t need to tell her, ever. Just… go back to her. Try again. You’ll make up for it.” Fox furrows his brows, a frown settling on his face, and Snake is looking through him. “You have to.”

“I haven’t seen you… is it because of them? A rookie and an engineer. Only one of them’s fit for this type of life, isn’t she?”

He practically seems to empty his lungs out when Snake heaves in front of him, looking almost like he is about to cry, and Fox startles at that. “I thought Otacon was going to die.” The engineer? Did something happen in the codec transmission…? “I couldn’t hear him that well, but I could hear Meryl perfectly and she was fine. I believed in her.”

Is Snake…?

“Have you felt love before, Snake?” his words causes the other man to stop, tensing up, and thankfully Fox is whispering so Otacon doesn’t hear as he walks by. “He’s…” childish, he wants to say, constantly in dangerous situations, but also… “cute, I suppose. You have an interesting choice in who to be attracted to.”

He murmurs something that Fox doesn’t pay attention to; he brushes past Snake, his hand resting on his bicep briefly, “you can always contact me Snake, you know, right?”

“I’ll never kill you.” He says vehemently. “But I’ll… I’ll keep in touch.” He pushes away from him, his feet barely crunching in the snow, as he makes his way over to Meryl. “I’m sorry, for everything.”

He doesn’t answer. He just gets on the ski, settling behind Meryl who looks between him and Snake, curiosity written clear on her face but she stays quiet on it. “Ready to go?” she asks, and Fox murmurs his agreement. From the corner of his eyes, he can see Otacon settling behind Snake on the other jet ski. “Okay, hang on tight. I’ll take us back to civilization and safety.”

And back to where he has to try and live again.

“Hopefully you don’t have people freaking out on you. Cyborg ninjas isn’t really something you see everyday.”

“I’ll be going back to my younger sister.” Fox says. “So you won’t have to worry about me, I have to take care of her when I get back.” Fear grips his heart at his own promise. Can he really continue taking care of Naomi without telling her what he has done? Can he? Snake has been his only chance to redeem himself and now he has to… “Hopefully, she’ll be happier when I get back.”

Meryl doesn’t push further than that.

For that, he is grateful, and lets himself sit in silence while Meryl takes them back.

Maybe, maybe he will be able to fight alongside Snake instead of go against him, and be made miserable again over it. After all, it is Snake he finds himself most loyal to. He hopes, he really does hope, that he will be able to work alongside Snake someday.

He has to prove himself first… and make it up to Naomi. Perhaps Snake is right.


End file.
